Research group(s)

Research interests

The skin serves as a protective barrier against environmental insults and loss of essential body fluids, and has a remarkable ability to regenerate throughout life, which depends on self-renewal of epidermal stem cells and differentiation of their progeny. Stem cell fate decisions are determined by cell intrinsic mechanisms but also by the microenvironment. My group aims at dissecting how fibroblasts of the underlying dermis regulate these fate decisions. Importantly, skin fibroblasts are not, as previously thought, a homogeneous cell population. Instead they arise from two distinct lineages during embryonic development with unique functions in skin development, homeostasis and regeneration. When skin tumours arise from neoplastic epidermal cells, they elicit profound and distinct changes in the dermis. Our studies are shedding light on the important issue of how signature oncogenic mutations in epithelial cells reprogram fibroblasts to cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and result in characteristic stromal responses, and if the two distinct fibroblast lineages have unique functions in skin tumour development and progression. In addition, we aim to address the role of the distinct fibroblast lineages and dermal signalling in wound healing and fibroblast-mediated skin pathologies such as scleroderma and keloids, which lack an effective clinical treatment regimen.